“The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children.”
Nelson Mandela
What unites Jeffrey Epstein, Jimmy Savile, the U.K. grooming gangs, the Boy Scouts, and the Catholic Church? Each lured, abused, and shattered the lives of countless victims, the true number of which will never be known.
Another thing they have in common, save perhaps for the Boy Scouts and Catholic Church to a small extent, is that their victims continue to suffer without ever having seen justice for the abuses and life long trauma they endured and continue to bear.
Arguably the most difficult similarity to wrap our heads around is that most of the victims … were and are children.
These horrors persisted for years, even decades, unchecked. Worse, the powerful and those entrusted to protect the vulnerable, shielded abusers, buried truths, and dismissed cries for help as voices of madness, troublemakers or even conspiracists.
These cases share a shameful truth between them… the victims were the very last to be considered.
In the U.K. grooming gangs scandal, local authorities, meant to safeguard the needy and vulnerable, complicitly ignored them, covered up the abuses they suffered and even silenced reports they courageously made.
In most of the horrific examples mentioned above, the vast majority of the victims have yet to be considered at all. It is utterly, profoundly shameful.
Society obsesses over Jeffrey Epstein’s high-profile drama, yet his victims’ pain fades into the background.
Jimmy Savile preyed on hundreds of children, his crimes halting only upon his death, enabled by those in power who did nothing for decades.
The U.K. grooming gangs, among the most recent and sprawling of these tragedies, reveal an enormous scale of abuse, long concealed by the elite and those meant to protect the vulnerable.
As a parent, I’ve thought about all these things for a long time but the swirl of considerations came to a head when the recent Department of Justice letter on Jeffrey Epstein came out, effectively declaring, “Move on, nothing to see here.” to all the victims and their supporters who had been led to believe justice was finally going to arrive.
Imagine being a survivor, carrying the visceral truth of your abuse… at 16… 14… 11… 8… or horrifically even younger, and hearing your suffering dismissed as irrelevant, untrue… a meaningless fabrication, and that no further efforts would be made to bring any closure, or justice… or anything.
Imagine what the victims hear in translation…
People with power are to be protected, not the victims.
The elites who may have done evil must be secured from distress, at your expense.
Your suffering will be smothered so that the powerful can continue their reign of terror.
How can we let these children feel so abandoned, so forgotten? Many may be adults now, but I am sure that the suffering abused child they once were exists very clearly beside them today.
Countless lives lie in ruins, futures scarred, minds and spirits broken. Perpetrators, often wielding power protected by others in authority who hide their deeds, cover up evidence.
Is this who we are? A society that no longer cherishes the innocence of its children? Have we lost the instinct to shield and protect the vulnerable? Is there nothing left of our souls to act for these wounded survivors?
In a speech at Worcester Station to launch the Children’s Fund, an initiative aimed at protecting and improving children’s lives, President Nelson Mandela said, “The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children.”
Pause and reflect deeply on this for a moment.
How do we treat our children as a society?
What does this reveal about our society’s character?
We must stand up for the children, not just for justice, but for their healing, their hope, their right to be seen and their pain acknowledged. Only then will justice follow.
Who will save the lost children?
That question begs an answer from us all.
Renato Passalacqua 